Why shouldn’t you prepare for CAT?

Setting aside that maddening scream to compete, take a moment of silence: is an MBA really worth it? All that insomnia to painfully cram information, all that time saved during your office breaks all the while handling stressful client requests or if you are a student, sacrificing almost all your hobbies, above all saying no with the world’s most pitiable reluctance: no to office parties (sulking), no to vacations (even family ones, more sulking follows), no to almost any activity that remotely sounds like fun (by now there’s massive anger held back, against yourself, against the world accompanied by an occasional outburst of tears): all that to see yourself in a suit working for a name recognizable by your neighbour? Okay, you are probably saying you do not care about the opinions are right and you could not be more right.

If you’re still here, the understanding is that you genuinely want to pursue an MBA because you feel it is the only way to joining the billionaire club: sorry for the disillusionment, but it is as much as a myth as the belief, only a dud would choose anything other than Engineering. You’re saying you want to go through the MBA programme from a good B School for the value of it: well, with all due respect, save it for your interview.

The end game of, well, 99 percentage of the students preparing for any top MBA entrance exam, is to earn a 6 digit salary. The B-Schools, teaching you the tricks of the trade, know that only too well. That is precisely why they will burn a hole in your pocket, and will continue to do so for students who avail an education loan. Yes, the loans are at 11 percentage or more even for the best of B Schools and you can do the math, literally. Beyond all this dissuasion, for those who persist, the best way to understand why you don’t need an MBA is to do a SWOT analysis and find out if you have other lucrative means to make ends meet: if the answer to that question is a ‘yes’, then you probably know what to do and definitely MBA is out of your way.

For those relentless souls who think MBA is the only way out, why CAT, really? GMAT is an exam which is getting increased number of test takers, thanks to Indian B Schools making the fees very competitive as opposed to their global counterparts. Also, there is the option of taking up IELTS to go and study in B Schools in, for instance, Canada: McGill University is one of the best in the world and the QS rankings help an aspirant decide better. So, after all the copious amounts of research , which hopefully the article will persuade you to do, if you are still bent on belling the proverbial CAT and crack other exams in its league: XAT, SNAP, NMAT, TISSNET among others, watch this space: as already evident we promise you nothing more than pragmatism. Cheers!